It's likely that many Malaysians and others have already read that Petronas - the giant Malaysian state-owned oil and gas company - has been kicked out of Chad. In a rather suspicious way too. The Chadian president alleges that Petronas fails to pay taxes to the Chadian government. After doing some reading, I feel the expulsion of Petronas is an exercise by Chad to forcefully nationalize part of Chadian oil and gas industry. That taxes stuff is simply a red-herring:

The surprise move followed Chad's decision to create a new national oil company, which it said should become a partner in the country's existing oil-producing consortium, led by U.S. major Exxon Mobil and including Chevron and Petronas.

If you're a Malaysian and you haven't heard of the expulsion, then you're probably too busy talking about a wedding between a Malaysian pop star and er, somebody.

Interestingly, the People's Republic of China seems to have a hand on the Malaysian explusion given that the PRC stands to directly benefit from Malaysian loss. So, it's kind of hard to shrug off the idea that the PRC might have a hand on this.

Whatever PRC role in this expulsion is, if Petronas is kicked out, Chad is stealing from Malaysian citizens. But then, given the fact that Chad was the world's most corrupt nation according to Transparency International last year, we should have seen this coming.

While that happens, here comes Hugo Chavez to the rescue:

KUALA LUMPUR: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez received a red-carpet welcome in Malaysia on Monday ahead of talks expected to focus on politics in the Middle East and cooperation in the oil and gas sector.

Socialist or not, black gold is still black gold. I'm sure even commies understand what that means.

Who needs Chad, eh?

Welcome Hugo Chavez.